Honduran Environmental Defender Assassinated in Bajo Aguan

On Sunday, the Honduran Agrarian Platform and the Aguan Organizations Coordinator (COPA) denounced the murder of environmental activist Santos Rivas and his 15-year-old son.

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Hitmen shot them while they were riding a motorcycle in the Ilanga community in the Colon department. This was the seventh murder against environmental activists in the Bajo Aguan area since the beginning of the year.

Human rights defenders demanded that the Prosecutor for Crimes against Life investigate what happened to find those responsible for the murder.

Before being assassinated, Santos Rivas, who was the founder of the peasant company Gregorio Chavez, publicly denounced that the armed group led by alias Piturro had threatened and harassed him on several occasions.

The region's authorities know that this paramilitary group has been operating inside the Paso Aguan farm for several years, COPA recalled.

The tweet reads, "I have been reporting on the agrarian and mining conflict in Bajo Aguan for several years now. I met Santos when he received me on several occasions at the Panama farm. Today the news says that he was murdered along with his son."

In June 2019, the Panamanian peasant community and the Agrarian Platform filed a complaint against that armed group before the then Attorney General of Honduras, Oscar Chinchilla.

This paramilitary group seeks to sow terror among the members of the Gregorio Chavez peasant company, which recovered land that had been usurped by a powerful group of palm landowners.

Although Rivas had been incorporated into the "Protection Mechanism" since 2019, the Honduran State "is not able to protect the defenders of land and water in the Aguan," COPA said.

The murder of the peasant leader and his son was condemned by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OACNUDH), which urged the Honduran authorities to take urgent measures to prevent more murders in the region.